Jens Baggesen

Jens Baggesen, in full Jens Immanuel Baggesen (born February 15, 1764, Korsør, Denmark—died October 3, 1826, Hamburg, Germany) leading Danish literary figure in the transitional period between Neoclassicism and Romanticism.

Jens Baggesen, engraving by Gilles-Louis Chrétien.

Courtesy of the Royal Danish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Copenhagen

In 1782 Baggesen went to Copenhagen to study theology. Three years later, at age 21, he had an unprecedented success in Denmark with his first collection of poems, Comiske fortællinger (1785; “Comical Tales”). Later, after his libretto to the first major Danish opera, Holger Danske (1789; “Ogier the Dane,” music by Friedrich Kunzen), received adverse criticism (mainly because of its supposed lack of nationalism), Baggesen traveled through Germany, Switzerland, and ... (100 of 259 words)